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They meet for brunch once a week.
Pharma doesn't want this. Story of his life.
And yet without fail he joins Megatron on the observation deck, drops hard into the seat across from the most prolific killer of their time, and stares blankly into the black of interstellar space until Megatron pours him a cup of gritty oil and goes back pecking away at his datapad.
Apparently he's writing poetry. Pharma doesn't want to know Megatron writes poetry. And yet he does. That's just his life now.
It's probably what he deserves.
-
Pharma is trying to soberly reflect on his life, work on his mental health, and make reparations.
Emphasis on trying.
The Lost Light is an abomination of science. A slap in the face of physics and metaphysics alike. Daily sessions with Rung can only do so much to counterweight the raw, unadulterated absurdity of life in this pit of quantum iniquity. He quite firmly believes now that Getaway mutinied out of self-defense.
It's at its worst when the Scavengers' path intersects with their own. They once attempted to chart how the Scavengers keep turning up like bad pennies; in the end Nautica simply shrugged and decided that by all accounts it didn't make any sense. But Rodimus alone is a potent enough force for chaos that nothing can stop him, and the rest of the crew might've been handpicked for their unique genius in enabling him. Pharma wants to know who in their right mind let Brainstorm, bane of both the Kimia Ethics Committee and the New Institute, and known patent-holder of no less than three WMDs that are apocalyptic even in their theoretical form, come within a light year of a ship like this.
No one can stop them. Getaway tried, and look what happened to the poor slagger. Ultra Magnus, once a respected paragon of law enforcement, appears to have gone native. Rung smiles fondly, agrees with Pharma that the Lost Light is a little eccentric, and then takes all of the fresh frothing nonsense in stride.
And Megatron sits in the observatory at the end of the week, scribbling poetry and drinking oil with the distant, resigned acceptance of a mech who broke a long, long time ago.
Meanwhile, up on the command deck, Rodimus strikes a dramatic pose on the arms of the co-captain's chair, while the last of the Legislators, its golden armor currently accented by blue and silver spark flowers, attempts to craft a true-to-life, fully transformable figurine in Rodimus's image. Drift is deeply engrossed in assisting it with the color swatch matching process. Everyone else on deck simply works around them.
Pharma can only witness this spectacle for a few sanity-straining seconds before he has to walk away.
-
Begrudgingly, they let him work the off shift. First Aid would rather see Pharma sawn in half and mounted on the prow of the ship than work with him; he clenches his hands into fists and coldly walks out whenever they have the misfortune to walk into the medical bay at the same time. Dearest Ratchet throws fewer such outright tantrums, but his jaw tightens and he doesn't speak except to double-check Pharma's work. On the rare occasions he does make eye contact, his suspicious optics are hard chips of ice.
They're something worse than strangers to each other, now.
(And there's something viscerally horrifying about seeing Ratchet's scalpel technique flowing from Pharma's fingers: brisk, straight forward, efficient. Almost as nauseating as watching the things attached to Pharma's wrists.)
Thankfully, Velocity seems chipper, enthusiastic, and skilled. Her bedside manner is steady. She's new, relatively speaking - while Pharma was setting off a sound plague to crown the ruin of his life, she joined the crew of the Vis Vitalis to help treat Thunderclash. Ratchet's brusqueness seems to grate on her. When asked her opinion on Megatron, she says that she's glad he's back and - disturbingly enough - seems to genuinely mean it. Most of her hands-on experience draws from the Lost Light crew's bizarre predilection for obscure, novel new medical crises: spark spasms and mutations, personality ticks, timesickness, in addition to the usual run of combat injuries.
She also failed the Camien medic exam nine times. She only performed her first surgery a meager few years ago. "Tenth time lucky!" she says, with a too-bright smile and a thumbs up while she's elbow-deep in Chromedome's nervecircuits.
Pharma transforms his not-hands back into hand-shaped objects, steeples them in front of his mouth, and proceeds to emit a thin, high-pitched noise through his vents for the next five minutes.
But it gives him something to work toward. The medics aboard the Vis Vitalis provided a solid foundation for her on how to run a Cybertronian medical bay. Ratchet and First Aid's mentorship, on the other hand, has been nonexistent. She's talented, yes, but clearly still fresh out of medical school. Her techniques range from strictly by-the-book to terrifyingly 'creative,' and she's never had to detail the procedure of a newly developed surgical technique to a board of examiners to prove that it was replicable. The fact that Ratchet and First Aid thought this acceptable is a travesty beyond any other Pharma has endured.
When the next slaghead turns up on the surgical slab with half their chest missing after a game of hand grenade tag gone wrong, Pharma calls her over despite the routine nature of the repairs involved. She comes and stands on the far side of the slab with curiosity furrowing her brow. "Here. Plug in," he says, and, once hard shutdown is initiated, sinks a not-hand into the patient's shattered ribs. It reshapes itself almost before Pharma finishes the thought, half a beat ahead of him, and he shudders internally as the thing that isn't a hand - will never be a hand - forms a lattice along the mech's insides. "Show me how you would stabilize the spark chamber in preparation for treating late-stage cybercrosis."
"Don't worry," he adds, when she bites her lip and hesitates. "There's nothing you could do to him that we can't fix."
Once, he would've said 'I.' On Delphi, arrogance was the only sanctuary he had after Prowl refused Pharma's request that the facility be shut down. But even before that, he was - careless with his conceit. Too much had come to him to easily; too much taken for granted.
He didn't bend. He broke.
There's a hesitation in her work when Velocity thinks she's being tested. She blanks on simple answers to leading questions, and Pharma bites back a snap more than once. He tore into First Aid and Ambulon for lesser stumbles than this. Yet she thrives under real pressure, when lives are on the line, and quickly absorbs and adapts his suggestions for refining her technique. The problem's easily diagnosed: a capable medic who had to brute force her way through examination anxiety and teach herself alternative learning mnemonics to compensate. His scornful opinion of Caminus's medical examiners ticks down another notch; someone should have noticed the talent at stake and mentored her before this.
"Is it true," she asks, once she's worked up the nerve, "that you once performed a four-way fuel pump transplant while being one of the donors?"
And there it is - the bright, avid glint in the eye. Her smile just a little too eager as she considers the possibilities.
The Lost Light look.
Pharma can't escape. He's trapped himself. Slag help him.
Still deep in the festering throes of an existential crisis, Pharma extricates a not-hand to point sternly at Velocity's chest. "First of all, let me make one thing very clear. If I catch you attempting a modified si vales valeo rolling resurrection chain including yourself without supervision? In this medical bay? There will be no power on this ship that can save you."
Velocity arches a brow. "But it's okay when you do it?" she says, skeptically.
Give him strength.
-
(He takes one look at the setup she used to induce and stabilize the mutagenic spark spasm on the template world, and never tells her that he could have saved Skids.
He knows he could have. Luna-1 would've had everything they required. His not-hands ache with the shape they'd have needed.
It would be, he thinks, needlessly cruel.
It doesn't matter now.)
-
"A huge green hand just picked up the ship, and an organic creature demands that we go to his planet and worship him as a god," Pharma informs Megatron the next week.
Because someone has to say something. As ludicrous as the concept of co-captaincy may be, and despite the towering monument to Optimus's arrogance that is Megatron's role in the farce, the fact remains that Rodimus's response to the imminent threat to their lives was to purse his lips and slurp on a straw until the box full of energon (with Swerve's face splashed across the side) crumpled with the gurgling sound of empty air, while the organic looked on, appalled. That's the leadership they're operating under right now.
Megatron scrolls down a page on his datapad, optics squinting in concentration in a way that generally indicates the need for corrective surgery or glasses. Pharma waits, despairing, as the massive green finger outside the window absorbs the latest round of laser fire from the Lost Light's weapons in the background.
Finally, Megatron glances up, scans the sight before them, and massages his temple with an expression that is entirely too mild. Probable headache due to astigmatism, which Pharma refuses to bring up on principle because it's Megatron. That, or this situation is simply too ridiculous for him to comprehend. "Rodimus has this in hand," he says at last, and takes a meditative sip from his mug as he contemplates the scene. Brainstorm's trooping out onto the bow of the ship now, steps sticking with magnetic force, with Nautica and Perceptor helping him lug a pastel pink and blue cannon on their shoulders.
Was that.
Was that a pun.
Pharma's legs admit defeat, and he slumps back in his usual seat. He stares out the window, unseeing, as the profound realization that this is his cosmic punishment sinks into his calloused spark.
Megatron, longstanding champion in the contest for the worst possible person the universe ever thought up, scans Pharma up and down. His idea of a sympathetic expression is so awkward that it makes Pharma want to bury his face in his hands in despair. "In times like these, I find it best to pretend that none of this means anything," he advises. When Pharma doesn't react, Megatron pats his shoulder and then retracts his hand, turning back to his datapad.
Outside, Brainstorm fires. A beam of sugary pink light hits the menacing green hand. Slowly but surely, the hand releases the Lost Light and rearranges itself to form a rude hand sign as it fades into a dim watermark against the backdrop of space. Nautica and Brainstorm slap a high-five, while Perceptor nods and takes notes.
Pharma sinks all the way back in his seat, legs splayed out and wings pinned as he drags his not-hands down his face. "Let it end," he begs the ceiling, arms falling out to either side.
The ceiling - and the formerly-genocidal warlord across the table - both fail to oblige him.
Instead, Megatron vents a faint sigh, and stands to pour Pharma a warm beverage.
-
Whirl descends on him the first (and only) time Pharma dares set foot in Swerve's.
Few bother to interact with Pharma. If they don't hate his guts, the much-reduced crew largely ignores him. These are people who shrug and take Megatron as captain in stride; Pharma barely registers as a blip on their drastically skewed threat radar. Whirl jostles his shoulder with unnerving glee, snapping his empurata claw in front of Pharma's face with his optic curved in a smile. (Stiff flexion - typical empurata side effect. Installing upgraded sensors would be good practice for Velocity before the delicate work of reconstructing Chromedome's nervecircuits from scratch - but he gets ahead of himself.)
"Doc," Whirl says, conspiratorially, "you've gotta give me a hand here."
…It's not too late to synthesize a new plague. Rodimus bestows a Rodimus Star on him for each week Pharma doesn't murder anyone, and he already has enough that if he mounted them it'd make First Aid's old, obsessive wall of Autobot badges look tacky. If this is how they reduced Megatron to a shadow of his former self, Pharma is even more at a loss as to how the Lost Light crew survived past the first week.
Whirl winks. Or just blinks. "Or a chainsaw! Inspired, that! I'm really not picky -"
Pharma has learned to fear the sound of the intercom crackling to life. But in this case, he'll take whatever relief he can get. Rodimus's cheerful announcement perks the audial sensors of everyone in the bar. The absolute madmechs. "Head's up! It's our old friends, the creepy clown aliens! Let's go, people!"
And Whirl bounces away at once, Pharma forgotten. "Mamma mia," he sing-songs, as he tugs repeatedly on Cyclonus's arm until he successfully drags the mech out of the corner booth. Then his optic narrows into a deadly serious line as he hefts a gun in each claw. "Here we go again."
"Oy!" the minibot behind counter yells. "No! Guns!"
The bar half-empties, the usual suspects chattering happily as they head for the shuttle bay. Pharma stalls out where Whirl left him and stares at his not-hands for a long moment.
Then, before Swerve can accost him, he leaves.
-
They look like hands.
They look exactly like his hands.
Even as Pharma thinks that, the metal over the thin struts of his fingers ripples and smooths of its own accord, sinuous.
He closes the not-hands into fists, and doesn't vomit.
-
The enemy mimes construct invisible walls at random intervals in the corridors during the attack.
So far as anyone can tell, the walls don't actually exist, which means it takes about a day for Nautica to figure out how to get rid of them. That doesn't stop people from spray painting the empty air with inappropriate slogans and memes until Ultra Magnus lays down the law.
The law, apparently, is more concerned with their poor punctuation than the fact that all of this is absurd. The law utilizes spray paint that meets the rigorous health and safety standards of the Galactic EPA to spell check everyone.
Pharma weeps. The only consolation that he has is that Megatron looks equally devastated by the end of the week, by the time Pharma gathers his remaining strength and slogs up to the observatory. Both of them wear identical expressions of gritty-opticed, exhausted defeat as they gaze bleakly into their mugs, the steam rising off the oil in curls.
"Ultra Magnus is instrumental in helping to curb some of Rodimus's…more extravagant tendencies," Megatron says, at last. He sounds distraught. "Very reliable. Very competent in administration."
Oh, pit. Are they commiserating out loud, now? Is that Pharma's life, now?
"I think that makes it worse," Pharma replies, after several more minutes of exhausted silence.
Megatron rubs his face. He has no counter for that. He nods in quiet admission, and Pharma nods in response.
They spend the next hour in miserable companionship, united in mutual despair.
-
"Tarn?" Megatron says, without looking up from his datapad. Pharma checked - today, he's annotating a sample of Minimus Ambus's writing.
Ordinarily, Pharma would grit his teeth and coolly inform Megatron exactly how it's physiologically possible for him to shove it. Megatron, of all people, has no right to say a damn thing about Tarn, or Delphi. Pharma's been lectured by better. Pharma's been lectured by people with a moral leg to stand on.
Today, Pharma just witnessed Rodimus hold a séance with the spirits of the Matrix in the middle of the all-crew slumber party. This normally would've been unremarkable - Pharma can feel his own vestiges of sanity slipping, so that a captain hosting a slumber party at all seems comparatively minor, in the grand scheme of things - except that no less than one hundred spirits did show up, and the rest of the night was spent in a sleepless blur as a third of the crew tried to shoot the incorporeal beings, another third acted like it was delightful to spend the night in a literally haunted ship, and the final third sojourned to Rewind's room to watch imported Earth movies and rot their dentae on rust sticks and candy, courtesy of the ship's psychiatrist and Megatron. Rodimus 'refuses to apologize for art.' Drift claims it was a religious experience and that they should let some Camien back on Neo-Cybertron know. One of the spirits continues to hang silently around the command deck, their hands clasped behind their back, apparently fascinated by the view of the stars.
Pharma hasn't felt as close to Ratchet in years as he did while working through the night to patch all these idiots back together, grumping about the existence of spark ghosts. Then Drift drew Ratchet out of the medical bay come morning with a fond smile and a gentle touch to his face. Ratchet let his head rest in Drift's hand, mouth quirked in a reluctant smile, and let himself be led away.
Reality is a dull, queasy weight in one's tanks. Nothing matters anymore.
"Yup," he says, flatly. That's about all there is to say on the matter, really.
Megatron grimaces. "Yes. He…does that."
If that's Megatron trying to be tactful, Pharma needs to drink something stronger in the mornings.
-
The shifts swap the next quarter. Velocity was already a capable medic, and has readily grasped the more in-depth connections he's fleshed out for her; Pharma can hardly protest the routine shift change on those grounds.
Now he works beside Ratchet on a daily basis. Unlike Velocity's relaxed, easy trust, Ratchet watches him like a hawk. Ratchet was always annoyingly overbearing as a CMO, constantly sticking his nose into routine procedures Pharma could handle in his sleep, and it's all the more grating now that Ratchet triple checks the status of every patient's transformation cog before they're discharged.
Tarn is dead. Pharma is livid before the week is out. He catches himself running the old calculations in perverse spite, after years of work breaking the traumatic habit: who won't be missed if they slip away.
He can't seem to stop himself. Passive aggression is the only tool at his disposal, here. So he…prods. Ratchet ignores the cutting jibes and needling barbs, lets them roll off his armor like water, and Ratchet's stoic lack of response scrapes against Pharma's raw nerves like sandpaper.
He changes tactics, and finds one that finally incites a reaction.
"Oh my dearest," Pharma sighs, as he gathers the medical tools for the autoclave at the end of the day. "Of course, spark of my spark," he says, saccharinely sweet, as he passes Ratchet the wrench he needs. "Old friend."
He wants the reaction. He wants to provoke - something. Anything. Even if it's just a rude retort.
But he'll never have Ratchet again.
"Farewell, my love," Pharma calls loudly over the change of shift, while Drift and Ratchet are still in earshot. He pitches it half an octave higher than normal, wistful and sighing. If he can't bait Ratchet, aggravating Drift is a close second.
Drift twitches and half-turns in a jerk, incredulous. Pharma smiles innocently, taunting, savoring the anticipation - but Ratchet catches Drift by the hand and turns him away. "Don't give him the attention he's angling for," he says, without looking back at Pharma once. "He's just trying to get a rise out of someone."
And then they are gone, and Pharma is alone, brittle and stiff as he goes through the motions of handing things off to an awkward Velocity and a cold, snappish First Aid.
They assign him back with Velocity at the end of the quarter, Ratchet never once having made eye contact with him. They do not change shifts again.
This is fine. He's better, with Velocity. Easier. Less a monster, more a medic. When she smiles at him in exhausted, heartening encouragement after a tense ten-hour surgery, he almost catches himself smiling back.
He'd forgotten what it felt like, to let himself care about patients.
-
Eventually, he needs to return the favor. Since apparently Megatron is the only other sane mech aboard, and solidarity is an ironic, irresistible attraction.
Honestly, Pharma's not even sure what role Drift has on board. Technically, he was never reinstated as third-in-command, but he and Rodimus are essentially conjoined at the hip. After the initial wariness over Megatron's presence, he's gleefully taken up the same devil-may-care attitude of the rest of the crew. Today he and Rodimus spent a solid hour going through old archival footage with Rewind's bemused help, while Megatron sat in the co-captain's seat and stoically endured the gossip.
"Remember that one time I painted 'Enemy of the State' across my aft for a rally?" Drift asks Megatron, distractedly.
Megatron covers his optics with his hand, and does not reply for a long time.
Belatedly, Rodimus notices Pharma's presence and mimes throwing a lasso to drag him toward the vortex of ravening terror that is the co-captain's seat.
It has been less than three days since their last nonsense, which was a new record. Pharma should've known better than to come here. Reluctantly, he joins the command team.
"Anyway, hearing nothing but good things from Lotty and Rung," Rodimus chatters, smacking Pharma firmly on the back. "And some annoyed things from Ratchet, but that's like. Normal. So I figure it's time to celebrate our awesome track record for adopting and reforming troubled souls!"
Drift looks up from the archival footage just long enough to raise a stack of three datapads and pass it to Rodimus without looking. Rodimus presents them to Ultra Magnus with proud, boisterous ceremony.
-
Ultra Magnus can do nothing to stop it. They filled out all of the required forms in perfect triplicate. They've weaponized the system.
-
Pharma makes his way to the observatory, and silently retrieves the usual set of mugs.
To his numb, infinite despair, on the side of the mug that always - deliberately - faces Megatron, someone has labelled it 'Mugatron.'
After another moment of silence, Pharma pours the oil and sits down to wait.
His arrival is heralded by the low thunder of tank-class feet. Megatron pauses, thrown, when he automatically turns to the counter and realizes his cup is gone. Then he tips his head to the side and joins Pharma, seating himself with a heavy groan of metal.
Out on the prow, Drift is already hard at work etching the outline of the new motto that's going to be painted in crisp red letters underneath the Lost Light's designation.
The Lost Light
Successfully reforming Megatron since 2014!
"My condolences," Pharma says, wryly.
"They're talking about starting a list underneath it," Megatron replies, grimly. "You're next."
Pharma leans forward on his elbow and sighs. This time, when Megatron gingerly pats his shoulder, it actually feels like sympathy.
Story of his life.